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Sith (tradition)
Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me. –From the Sith Code An ancient order of Force-users devoted to the dark side and determined to destroy the Jedi, the Sith have existed in many forms throughout the history of the galaxy. The original Sith were a near-Human population on Korriban, subjected and ruled by outcast Dark Jedi several thousand years before the Battle of Yavin. The name “Sith” eventually came to refer to the dark side cult that ruled the Sith people (That is, the “Lords of the Sith”). When the Old Republic discovered the Sith Empire thousands of years later, it lead to the Great Hyperspace War, the first of a long series of conflicts that ravaged the galaxy over the next few millennia. Eventually, the Sith Empire (Now known as the “Old Sith”) was destroyed, and all it left behind were ancient holocrons and the ruined tombs and temples on Korriban, Yavin IV, and a handful of other planets throughout the galaxy. The current incarnation of the Sith (The “New Sith”) is the result of another Dark Jedi who broke away from the order. Two thousand years before the Battle of Yavin, this Dark Jedi had come to the understanding that the true power of the Force lay not through contemplation and passivity, but by tapping into one’s emotions and the dark side. Renaming himself Darth Ruin, he stole a Sith Holocron from the archives of the Jedi order and began gathering followers to his banner. Awakening beliefs from the dark past, the new Sith cult continued to grow, driven by the promise of new powers attainable by tapping into the hateful energies of the dark side. It was only a matter of time before the order self-destructed. Internecine struggles by power-hungry Sith practitioners dwindled their numbers. Weakened by infighting, the Sith were easily wiped out by the Jedi at the Battle of Ruusan, one thousand years after Darth Ruin founded the order. However, one Sith had the cunning to survive. Darth Bane resurrected the cult so that there could only be two—no more, no less; a master and an apprentice. Bane adopted cunning, subterfuge, and stealth as the fundamental tenets of the new Sith order. Bane took an apprentice. When that apprentice succeeded him, that new Sith Lord would take an apprentice. Thus, the Sith quietly continued for centuries, until the time of Darth Sidious. With great cunning and treachery, Sidious fomented a galactic civil war within the Republic, seized control of the Galactic Senate, wiped out the Jedi order, and replaced the Old Republic with the Galactic Empire. With Sidious as the Emperor and Darth Vader as his loyal apprentice, the Sith ruled the galaxy and plunged it into darkness. It remained so for decades until a new hope arose to bring Darth Vader back from the dark side and extinguish the menace of the Sith. The Sith order rises once again in the Legacy era, some 140 years after the Battle of Yavin. The new Sith are led by the enigmatic Darth Krayt and serve as dark side enforcers to the reincarnated Empire. Though the Sith are not as common as the Jedi were during the days of the Old Republic, it is not uncommon to have a Sith apprentice or Sith Lord attached to an important mission or garrison. Membership: Any character with the Force Sensitivity feat can become a member of the Sith tradition by being accepted as an apprentice by a Sith Lord. During the Rise of the Republic era, there can only be one Sith Lord and one Sith Apprentice. Thus, the only way to join the Sith tradition during this era is to wait (or arrange) for one of the two Sith to die. Category:Lore Category:Force Traditions Category:Core Rules